Abstract
The immune function of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of patients on maintenance hemodialysis was studied. The hemodialyzed patients were subdivided into 2 groups; patients receiving hemodialysis treatment for time periods either equal to or less than 3 years (Group I) and equal to or greater than 10 years (Group II). Healthy volunteers (Group III) were used as controls. We assayed several immunological parameters, including IL-1 activity of monocytes stimulated with OK432, lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cell activity against renal cancer cells, and titers of cytokines (IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha) produced by either PBL cultured with IL-2 or LAK cells cultured with the renal cancer cells. In group I both LAK cell activity and IL-1 production were significantly suppressed as compared to those in group III. In addition, the titer of IFN produced by LAK cells was lower than that in group III. There were no significant differences among the titers of cytokines produced by PBL in any of the three groups. Although the percentage of cases with suppressed cytokine production seemed higher in Group I than Group III, the difference was not significant. However, there was a close correlation between the values of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Therefore, there could be some patients with impaired immune function of PBL in Group I. In contrast, there was no significant difference in the immune functions of PBL that we examined between patients on long-term hemodialysis (≥10 years) and healthy volunteers.
